A power struggle with my flesh
fighting with my impatience
playing tug a war with my addictions
arm wrestling with my anger
shadow boxing with my fears
temptation is such a waste of time
In the bustling halls of workplace,
there lies a quiet enmity hidden in plain sight.
A simmering rivalry that runs deep,
whispers behind closed doors and furtive glances that never meet.
On the surface, all seem polite and cordial,
but beneath the shining sheet of professionalism
lies a devious inferno.
The backbiting, the petty squabbles,
all serve to undermine a collective goal.
We pretend that all are in this together,
but the fact is far more guileful, much harder to bear.
For as long as this hidden enmity persists,
we can never truly reach our full potential or even hope to coexist.
©Chitra Arun
There’s a quietness in the shadows.
A lonely place where sadness grows.
A place in time where my mind goes.
Thoughts and memories are my foes.
But I have learned to not resist,
for when I do, they just persist.
I used to fight; I’d clinch my fist.
Shadow boxing, I always missed.
Meditating on dark and light,
it came to me I shouldn’t fight.
Brightest light or dark as the night,
their contrast gives us better sight.
The reason for simplicity,
to deal with life’s complexity.
Drunk man and Truth.
(PART 3 OF 10: WHISKEY BLUES)
The barman knows my demons and knows how to cage them,the bar is broad as spine of a mountain when mine is collapsing on carrying guilt.
Days pass as my whiskey burning my throat
I learnt that I was trying to burn your name off the lining of my throat so that drinking sorrows may be free of your name.
Sober thoughts are shadow boxing, I have been trying to mimic my shadow dancing, and you were the dim feature I see every time I down the whiskey.
You made a great exit while I was jamming to our favourite love song, your steps sounded like a distant storm, Thunderous but leaving.
I'm still searching for the truth on your footprints on wet sand.
Shadows 9-22-23
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shadows
Living in ethereal shadows of compassion,
In profiles of grace,
Mercy overshadows stumbling stones
Revealed in a lens of benevolent focus
To eclipse blisters of ebony shades
With wispy balms of healing from raining penumbras,
No longer shadow boxing with bruising lacerations.
Shadows of grace pursue cutting eclipses
And wraps golden coronas of clarity
Around impenetrable guilt, treachery and betrayal,
Forgiveness foreshadowed in rising cumulous mists
Chasing cringing palls back into impotent hollows
Creating translucent patterns of favor
In delicate dews of lotus clour.
Ever present living pierced hands of agape,
In crimson shadow’s continual canticles,
Engulfs dark demon wraiths with pure mystery
And with silhouettes of the eternal Eden
Reveals perpetual truth –
No shadow can with withstand
The incense of everlasting grace.
A Carolina Wren
bobs and weaves
inside a ring of sunlight.
It is shadow boxing,
but there are no shadows
yet it still jabs and moves.
A boxer
fights the shadow of himself.
Death accepts us all
Life’s the discriminator
Move towards the light
By
David Kavanagh
‘When did you last see me’?
It was a Tuesday
I changed your diaper.....I can still smell your poop.
‘And then’?
You at four, your little hand tugging me into love.
At six, finger-painting;
my garish face splashed onto blank paper,
eye’s googly-bright like crazy suns.
‘I don't remember that’.
You at ten years old
when I dragged you to school
after the bullying.
‘Yea, you scared everyone’.
The long treks we took over moors and rocks.
Dawn til dusk, each trying to out distance the other,
until I would relent, and you would shrug
as if you were not even tired.
‘I wasn’t’.
Your sixteen-year-old smirk as you lied to me
about everything.
Your seventeen-year-old drugged isolation.
You, graduating inside of a camera I held up
to cover my face.
Saw you last, of course, at the airport,
it was a Wednesday.
‘Maybe I and the grandchildren will get
to America soon’.
Make it soon kid,
I’m running out of shadows.
The first time I lost my mind,
I was standing in the rain.
The second time the song remained the same.
My brother told me all you’ll ever need is family,
Then he walked away and was never seen again.
And that old record always skip the exact same place,
33 1/3, or 45, or even at 78.
It only skips when it’s raining.
.
My daddy taught me how to never care.
My mother taught me how to talk to the ones that were not there.
Yet I’m still looking every time and everywhere.
And life has taught me not to trust the ones that say they care.
And all my black eyes came from shadow boxing in the air.
.
So I walk away,
And I don’t cry.
Spend my days and my nights,
Practicing goodbye.
Goodbye can only hurt you when it’s raining.
The stakes are being raised.
Mistakes are being made.
And the song remains the same it never changes.
That old record always skips at the same old place.
And I guess it’s time to say goodbye it’s raining.
... first time I lost my mind I was standing in the rain.
Each time the song remained the same.
If I could only whet my mind,
And simply turn the page.
whispers...
in the night send quite a bit of fright
yesterday dreams of eating vanilla ice ceam
outside in the street hearing people scream
going shadow boxing & I'm not lying
getting busy in my crib got fish that's frying
years ago let the truth be told,
you will do what you've been told until the rights to you are sold
getting busy & free to lay every single day
at the back of the bar
shooting hoops lisening to the juke & their you are
took out my magical pad drawng pictures having fun
Time is a killer gettig caught right in the midde
Sucka's want to blame me for all the mistakes in the world
Waiting to get past ths new phase getting lost in a purple haze
Out on the street I see a bum pissing
Is there something I should learn in this newest lesson
Free to lay under the sun watching everybody have some fun
There's a quest in my heart blown full of desire
getting lost in the sauce now I'm ready to retire
My will is ill, sick, sick, sick
with gut-full of menace and bile.
Tongue-tied, anger locked-up inside
I stayed on the high-side.
and let my vicious stinging reply slide.
My rehearsals all played-out internal.
Oh what doozies I had in store,
pre-recorded for live slap down.
But the tempest taunt stayed indoors
shadow-boxing, shouting out insults
to mirrored walls and glass ceilings
It was good to lance the boil, pus expelled.
The hallowed high ground can be a lonely place
where restraint quells the struggle locked-in.
The squirm and fraught fight fades to frustration
by doggedly accepting that I made the right decision.
On another day, things stored away
will surface in a considered way.
Be calmer, let Karma's retribution gel
Bring it on!
Human wreckage
Skeletal wasteland
Void of emotions
Echoes... vague-
Shadow boxing
In darkness
With ghosts.
while shadow boxing
sometimes
i kept on
moving dancing and
a prancing
just bouncing
off the ropes
in my imagination and
suddenly i caught
my opponent shadow off guard
standing flat footed
so i use
the sweet science of boxing
with some
stiff jabs plus
some body shots
back up to the head
then the overhand right
that knocked
my shadow out cold
yeah ten feet off the ground
towards outer space
well
i just kept on dancing.
sticking and moving
popping the jabs with my gloves
weaving in and out
quick-lightning hand speed
toe-to-toe
man-to-man
the sweet science
inside the boxing ring
still, lives inside of me
You want them to be as yourself, morally depraved ever reaching
Towards the darkness; to further these covert, self-serving agendas ?
Sprinkling a bit of powdered sugar atop of Phi Beta Kappa's nose; scholastic
Piranhas aspiring to one day don the coveted dictatorial pitch black robes....
A true Pharisee in contemporaries era apart from this circumcision such mockery
Shadow boxing with your own ignorance but you want the world to be just like you ?
Raping hearts stripping souls these harlots chasing ghost their fathers sold
Amid verbalisms golden wagons crossing this new frontier and crossbone bottles
Purchased from her progenies pharmacy at Havard's school of bend to breaks
Subjugatings oppressive dogmatic law ? Refusing to enter Light's temple..
While chaining others these children blinding their eyes barriers aside your
Pagan's pain judicial refrain morally depraved ever reaching ?
...."Martha, I Am the resurrection." *
Each moment grows
Birth and death
Shedding what was left
The chrome piece of time
Dangles like a wooden cross
neck lace, passionate for death
The stolen widow
Her extensions outstretched
From a windowless perspective
The universe encircles in captive dance
We are caught in every mired branch
Still sleeping under the sun
Talking heads prosaic in a pulpit
Breathe heavy in the humid church casket
Waiting to rearrange fate
My child fingers grope slowly
Politely, but still slightly disgraced
To be told life may be elsewhere
That heaven exists on the mantle
That God shadows every step...
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